Earlier you spoke about the seller losing as a result of the profit of the trader. While giving doesn't profit the giver, doesn't giving still produce potential loss in the form of a potential lost sale? Potential loss isn't the same, morally, as potential loss + profit, but isn't any action that produces potential loss still crossing an ethical line?

Isn't giving away uncopyrighted software unethical?

The distinction I see is that you don't personally profit when you give it away. Perhaps this results in a lost sale, though I think it is far more likely that sales are lost when the person receiving the item wants it bad enough to give up something of value in exchange.

To your point, I really don't think it's OK to give it away either, but I'm not going to judge someone giving it to a friend behind closed doors. I definitely don't think it should be openly encouraged or advertised.

MUST BE CHECKED TO CONTINUE I will not allow cultures purchased from Sourdoughs International to be reproduced for resale. To protect quality and viability, we cannot accept returned cultures or give refunds.

MUST BE CHECKED TO CONTINUE I will not allow cultures purchased from Sourdoughs International to be reproduced for resale. To protect quality and viability, we cannot accept returned cultures or give refunds.

I knew I remembered seeing that, but I couldn't find it on their website. Thanks for posting Perry.

If anyone would like a New England starter that I cultivated for bread making, you can PM me with your address. It is a 1/2 whole wheat starter right now, but could easily be transitioned to all white. It likes pretty much any flour you give it, although I have been feeding it locally milled whole wheat flour and Caputo. It is a vigorous and hearty strain. I sometimes make pizza with it.

I have eight bags of the dried starter (thank you to Chau for suggesting the drying process) which I can give away. I keep a number of them for "backup" in case something happens.

Well I did a search and can not find anything on the ethics of swapping, buying or selling yeast cultures. I DID find lot's that says that no matter what strain you think you are buying you will have local wild yeast predominately within a very short time, which kind of makes the whole thing moot.

Maybe I don't know the whole background of this, but to me this seems to me that this is analogous to buying and or trading seeds, which people have been doing without ethical objection for millenia (at least until Monsanto started patenting GMO seeds). When the person who originally captures the yeast culture propagates it and transfers it to another person (let's call that person the "recipient"), the original propagator must know that the recipient is going to further propagate the yeast culture, since that is the nature of a yeast culture. The original propagator is really transferring the right to propagate the yeast culture along with the yeast itself. And since a practically unlimited amount of the yeast culture can be made by anyone who has it, I don't see how the original propagator who transferred the yeast culture could possibly object to the recipient further propagating the yeast culture and giving or selling it to others. In fact, unless the recipient has specifically agreed not to transfer or sell the culture, it seems it is more ethical than not to further transfer it (whether by gift or sale) since that increases the chance of the culture remaining strong and surviving.

Feel free to point out any errors in my argument!

UPDATE: I guess I could point out my own error. If the website makes you agree not to further transfer the culture before you buy, you've agreed, and transferring it in violation of that condition would of course be unethical. Interesting to consider what the obligation might be of someone who receives the yeast culture as a gift from someone who bought it from Sourdo. Would that person then be ethically free to commercialize the yeast, since they received it as a gift (which is not prohibited by the website language quoted above) and never agreed not to commercialize the yeast culture?

Interesting to consider what the obligation might be of someone who receives the yeast culture as a gift from someone who bought it from Sourdo. Would that person then be ethically free to commercialize the yeast, since they received it as a gift (which is not prohibited by the website language quoted above) and never agreed not to commercialize the yeast culture?

No he would not be free to propagate and sell the culture. That person would be as ethically bound as the person who purchased the culture. It's a matter of substance vs. form.

The language "I will not allow cultures purchased from Sourdoughs International to be reproduced for resale" is fairly tight since it does not say who does the reproduction for sale. Any purchaser who purchased the culture from SI has contractually agreed not to do it and that duty should extend to any third party, whether it is to a donee as a gift or to someone else for the purposes of reproducing it. The language does not preclude a purchaser from sharing or swapping the culture so long as there is no sale. That was fine with Marco who, as earlier noted, gave the Ischia and Camaldoli cultures to Ed Wood at SI for purposes of commercial exploitation.

I will disagree with a lot of this. First, a wild culture that is captured is not intellectual property. Second, requiring you to agree to not cultivate a first generation cultivar MAY be legal and ethical, but after that, it is no longer the product you bought, it is a commingling of what you bought and what you introduced.

This differs from intellectual property in that if you buy software and improve upon it (commingle), then you are still legally and ethically bound to not sell it in that the original patented/copyrighted code is still an integral part of the item. This is not so with "wild" code, that could be considered to be open source code. An example would be the commercial versions of Linux.

If you were to buy and dry the Ischa starter from a seller, then resell that culture, you would be in violation of their terms and conditions. If you were to buy and grow the culture, then dry and resell it from the first generation, you may be (very narrowly) violating the terms and conditions (and ethics), but after that you are selling a unique, un-patented, non copyrighted mixture of a specific (Ischia) and local yeast and bacteria culture.

From my reading, it is not really the yeast anyway, it is the symbiotic bacteria that distinguish the culture.

If you were to buy and dry the Ischa starter from a seller, then resell that culture, you would be in violation of their terms and conditions. If you were to buy and grow the culture, then dry and resell it from the first generation, you may be (very narrowly) violating the terms and conditions (and ethics), but after that you are selling a unique, un-patented, non copyrighted mixture of a specific (Ischia) and local yeast and bacteria culture.

Tom,

I interpret the term "reproduce" to mean that the culture has the same characteristics as the original. If the reproduced culture does not have those characteristics, whether it is because of changes introduced locally or in any other way, then the end product would not be "reproduced" in my opinion. In such cases, Ed Wood might not be overly concerned with what happens to that end product.

I agree with tscar and also if that legal/ethical obligation extends to a third party where does it stop? If that third party gave some to another person, and then that person gave some to someone else, etc. Would a 10th party be ethicly or leaglly obligated to not sell the culture for profit?

I would say yes but any legal restriction can break down eventually, no matter how carefully the restriction is drafted from a legal standpoint, and especially with a sequence such as you described. I'm not sure that I would want to buy a reproduced culture from the tenth person who has made a reproduction. Or even the second reproducer. Of course, I would not know where in the chain the reproducing entity entered the business. Not knowing that alone would discourage me from dealing with such a reproducer. It's a pig in a poke.

I agree with tscar and also if that legal/ethical obligation extends to a third party where does it stop? If that third party gave some to another person, and then that person gave some to someone else, etc. Would a 10th party be ethicly or leaglly obligated to not sell the culture for profit?

Would those of you who think it is OK to propagate and sell Ed's cultures feel the same way and be so quick to rationalize it if it was your business and livelihood that was affected?

If my business was selling wild cultures, I would anticipate and plan for it in my business model.

That is to say, if you are selling something that is endemic and free, then your business model must include a value added service. In the case of this particular example, your business model would include the proviso that you sold the TRUE and unadulterated culture, not one that was allowed to change.

I would say yes but any legal restriction can break down eventually, no matter how carefully the restriction is drafted from a legal standpoint, and especially with a sequencer such as you described. I'm not sure that I would want to buy a reproduced culture from the tenth person who has made a reproduction. Or even the second reproducer. Of course, I would not know where in the chain the reproducing entity entered the business. Not knowing that alone would discourage me from dealing with such a reproducer. It's a pig in a poke.

If my business was selling wild cultures, I would anticipate and plan for it in my business model.

That is to say, if you are selling something that is endemic and free, then your business model must include a value added service. In the case of this particular example, your business model would include the proviso that you sold the TRUE and unadulterated culture, not one that was allowed to change.

That's not what I asked, and if the culture was endemic and free, you wouldn't need to propagate Ed's to sell. You would simply go get the endemic and free one but you can't because it isn't - practically speaking anyway.

Does anyone think when I sent the dried out Ischia starter to some members here on the forum that I was doing anything wrong? I don't want to get mixed-up in doing something unethical and somehow hurt Ed Woods business.

Does anyone think when I sent the dried out Ischia starter to some members here on the forum that I was doing anything wrong? I don't want to get mixed-up in doing something unethical and somehow hurt Ed Woods business.

Norma,

The restriction imposed by SI applies to reproducing the cultures for purposes of resale. I assume that you are not charging the people to whom you have been sending dried forms of the Ischia culture. If not, you should be OK. Ed Wood knows full well that purchasers of his cultures for personal, home use are going to share them with others.

You all make great points. I would never do anything to effect someones livelihood. However, If I was going to start a buisness, I wouldn't care how negatively I effefected the other businesses I would be competing. I'm not doing any of those things, just saying.